Written and edited by Norm Scott:
EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!!
Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Is America Headed for a New Kind of Civil War? --- The New Yorkker

in April,
Amazon selected the
dystopian novel “American
War”—which
centers on a second U.S. civil war—as one of its best books of the
month. In a review in the Washington Post, Ron Charles wrote, “Across
these scarred pages rages the clash that many of us are anxiously
speculating about in the Trump era: a nation riven by irreconcilable
ideologies, alienated by entrenched suspicions . . . both poignant and
horrifying.” The Times book reviewer noted, “It’s a work of fiction.
For the time being, anyway.”... Robin Wright, Is America Headed for a New Kind of Civil War?, The New Yorker

I've been waiting to read American War for months and have it on order from the library. Sometimes I think that maybe Lincoln should have let the south secede -
I have been seeing parallels between now and the 1850s --- those times are really worth studying. So I was interested to read this section:

Before Charlottesville, David Blight, a Yale historian, was already
planning a conference in November on “American Disunion, Then and Now.”
“Parallels and analogies are always risky, but we do have weakened
institutions and not just polarized parties but parties that are risking
disintegration, which is what happened in the eighteen-fifties,” he told
me. “Slavery tore apart, over fifteen years, both major political
parties. It destroyed the Whig Party, which was replaced by the
Republican Party, and divided the Democratic Party into northern and
southern parts.”

“So,” he said, “watch the parties” as an indicator of America’s health.

This is one reason I have been posting so many articles on the divisions in the Democratic Party. Some people think the left is winning (not the far left which eschews parties other than their own). Others think the center is winning -- I believe the latter -- that the left is incapable of organizing itself to take over the party. Thus I lean toward the idea that the Dems will split. But yes, watch the parties as an indicator.

I found this point interesting:

Gregory
Downs, a historian at the University of California at Davis, told me.
During the Civil War, even Southern politicians who denounced or were
wary of secession for years—including Jefferson Davis—ended up as
leaders of the Confederacy. “If the source of conflict is deeply
embedded in cultural or social forces, then politicians are not
inherently able to restrain them with calls for reason,” Downs said. He
called the noxious white supremacists and neo-Nazis the “messengers,”
rather than the “architects,” of the Republic’s potential collapse. But,
he warned, “We take our stability for granted.”

Read my last post on the Jews who will support Trump no matter how many Nazis are marching. By the way -- I have been watching The Roosevelts on PBS - must see for so much to connect to what is going on today -- from both Teddy's (1898-1918) and Franklin's key years (1910-1940's). One fact was how in 1939 - polls showed that over 90% of Protestants and over 80% of Catholics opposed taking in refugees (many Jewish) -- here's a factoid -- 25% of Jews also were opposed -- in my last post we used figures of around 30% of Jews support Trump NMW - No Matter What.

Is America Headed for a New Kind of Civil War?

Based on his experience in civil wars on three continents, Mines cited
five conditions that support his prediction: entrenched national
polarization, with no obvious meeting place for resolution;
increasingly divisive press coverage and information flows; weakened
institutions, notably Congress and the judiciary; a sellout or
abandonment of responsibility by political leadership; and the
legitimization of violence as the “in” way to either conduct discourse
or solve disputes.

President Trump “modeled violence as a way to advance politically and
validated bullying during and after the campaign,” Mines wrote
in Foreign Policy. “Judging from recent events the left is now fully
on board with this,” he continued, citing anarchists in
anti-globalization riots as one of several flashpoints. “It is like
1859, everyone is mad about something and everyone has a gun.”

To test Mines’s conjecture, I reached out to five prominent Civil War
historians this weekend. “When you look at the map of red and blue
states and overlap on top of it the map of the Civil War—and who was
allied with who in the Civil War—not much has changed,” Judith Giesberg,
the editor of the Journal of the Civil War
Era and a historian at
Villanova University, told me. “We never agreed on the outcome of the
Civil War and the direction the country should go in. The postwar
amendments were highly contentious—especially the Fourteenth Amendment,
which provides equal protection under the law—and they still are today.
What does it mean to deliver voting rights to people of color? We still
don’t know.”

She added, “Does that make us vulnerable to a repeat of the past? I
don’t see a repeat of those specific circumstances. But that doesn’t
mean we are not entering something similar in the way of a culture war.
We are vulnerable to racism, tribalism, and conflicting visions of the
way forward for our nation.”

Anxiety over deepening schisms and new conflict has an outlet in popular
culture: in April,
Amazon selected the
dystopian novel “American
War”—which
centers on a second U.S. civil war—as one of its best books of the
month. In a review in the Washington Post, Ron Charles wrote, “Across
these scarred pages rages the clash that many of us are anxiously
speculating about in the Trump era: a nation riven by irreconcilable
ideologies, alienated by entrenched suspicions . . . both poignant and
horrifying.” The Times book reviewer noted, “It’s a work of fiction.
For the time being, anyway.” The book’s author, Omar El Akkad, was born in
Egypt and covered the war in Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, and the
Ferguson protest as a journalist for Canada’s Globe and Mail.

Before Charlottesville, David Blight, a Yale historian, was already
planning a conference in November on “American Disunion, Then and Now.”
“Parallels and analogies are always risky, but we do have weakened
institutions and not just polarized parties but parties that are risking
disintegration, which is what happened in the eighteen-fifties,” he told
me. “Slavery tore apart, over fifteen years, both major political
parties. It destroyed the Whig Party, which was replaced by the
Republican Party, and divided the Democratic Party into northern and
southern parts.”

“So,” he said, “watch the parties” as an indicator of America’s health.

In the eighteen-fifties, Blight told me, Americans were not good at
foreseeing or absorbing the “shock of events,” including the Fugitive
Slave Act, the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, the John Brown raid,
and even the Mexican-American War. “No one predicted them. They forced
people to reposition themselves,” Blight said. “We’re going through one
of those repositionings now. Trump’s election is one of them, and we’re
still trying to figure it out. But it’s not new. It dates to Obama’s
election. We thought that would lead culture in the other direction, but
it didn’t,” he said. “There was a tremendous resistance from the right,
then these episodes of police violence, and all these things [from the
past] exploded again. It’s not only a racial polarization but a seizure
about identity.”

Generally, Blight added, “We know we are at risk of civil war, or
something like it, when an election, an enactment, an event, an action
by government or people in high places, becomes utterly unacceptable to
a party, a large group, a significant constituency.” The nation
witnessed tectonic shifts on the eve of the Civil War, and during
the civil-rights era, the unrest of the late nineteen-sixties and the
Vietnam War, he said. “It did not happen with Bush v. Gore, in 2000, but
perhaps we were close. It is not inconceivable that it could happen
now.”

In a reversal of public opinion from the nineteen-sixties, Blight said,
the weakening of political institutions today has led Americans to shift
their views on which institutions are credible. “Who do we put our faith in today?
Maybe, ironically, the F.B.I.,” he said. “With all these military men in
the Trump Administration, that’s where we’re putting our hope for the
use of reason. It’s not the President. It’s not Congress, which is
utterly dysfunctional and run by men who spent decades dividing us in
order to keep control, and not even the Supreme Court, because it’s been
so politicized.”

In the wake of Charlottesville, the chorus of condemnation from
politicians across the political spectrum has been encouraging, but it
is not necessarily reassuring or an indicator about the future, Gregory
Downs, a historian at the University of California at Davis, told me.
During the Civil War, even Southern politicians who denounced or were
wary of secession for years—including Jefferson Davis—ended up as
leaders of the Confederacy. “If the source of conflict is deeply
embedded in cultural or social forces, then politicians are not
inherently able to restrain them with calls for reason,” Downs said. He
called the noxious white supremacists and neo-Nazis the “messengers,”
rather than the “architects,” of the Republic’s potential collapse. But,
he warned, “We take our stability for granted.”

He dug out for me
a quote from
the journalist Murat Halstead’s book “The War Claims of the
South,” published
in 1867. “The lesson of the war that should never depart from us,”
Halstead wrote, “is that the American people have no exemption from the
ordinary fate of humankind. If we sin, we must suffer for our sins, like
the Empires that are tottering and the Nations that have perished.”

Eric Foner, the Columbia University historian, won the Pulitzer Prize,
in 2011, for his book “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American
Slavery.”
Like the other scholars I spoke to, Foner is skeptical that any future
conflict will resemble America’s last civil war. “Obviously, we have
some pretty deep divisions along multiple lines—racial, ideological,
rural versus urban,” he told me. “Whether they will lead to civil war, I
doubt. We have strong gravitational forces that counteract what we’re
seeing today.” He pointed out that “the spark in Charlottesville—taking
down a statue of Robert E. Lee—doesn’t have to do with civil war.
People are not debating the Civil War. They’re debating American society
and race today.”

Charlottesville was not the first protest by the so-called alt-right,
nor will it be the last. Nine more rallies
are planned for
next weekend and others in September.

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UFT Election Vote Comparison: 2004-10

A Personal Historical Perspective

Why Karen Lewis Reads Ed Notes

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Hedges says, There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history.

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

GEM's Julie Cavanagh Debates E4E member on NY1 on LIFO and Seniority

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy TysonProfessor of African American Studies and HistoryDuke University

A Familiar Voice on Unions

"We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike"- Adolf Hitler, May 2, 1933

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Outsource our children

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

Teacher Value-Added Data Dumping by Norm Scott

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

From Sharon Higgins

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Video of Chicago's George Schmidt and CORE Shredding Arne Duncan and the Chicago Corporate Model

Great Post on Teacher Quality at the Morton School

I'm very tired of the myth that schools are bursting at the seams with apathetic, unskilled, surly, child-hating losers who can't get jobs doing anything else. I recently figured that, counting high school and college where one encounters many teachers in the course of a year, I had well over 100 teachers in my lifetime, and I can only say that one or two truly had no place being in a classroom.